


Study Buddies

by dancinbutterfly



Series: Tried and Tested Series [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Best Friends, Confessions, Derek has the hardest life, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e12 Master Plan, Families of Choice, Family, Family Drama, Grief/Mourning, Hugging, Insecurity, Isaac is precious, Loss of Parents, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Memories, Misunderstandings, Mother-Son Relationship, Mpreg, Near-Canon AU, Other, Parenthood, Parents, Psychological Trauma, Romance, Scott is a dorktastic mensch, Sheriff Stilinski is a superhero, Stiles is a creampuff with a spine of steel, Talking, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Werewolf Biology, Werewolves, accidental discovery, fathers, mothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 12:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody needs a support system, especially Derek and Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Study Buddies

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot believe how much of a response this has gotten. Thank you so much for all the support. Sorry for the delay but all the feedback and encouragement really helped keep me finish this section. I ♥ you all and will try and get the next section out quicker this time. 
> 
> Beta/Thanks: to dodificus for beta checking this, unsticking me and her glorious podfics, to [knight_tracer](knight_tracer), [homoeroticismforthewin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/homoeroticismforthewin) and [ariadne83](ariadne83) for the handholding and brainstorming.

Deaton's version of _What To Expect When You're Expecting_ definitely falls somewhere on the Top Ten Most Traumatizing Experiences of Stiles' Life list. Yeah. He has an actual list because seriously? His freaking life. Still, Derek's first check up fell somewhere below seeing Peter Hale in full on Alpha mode for the first time but above having to see Jackson's junk. Scott's bedroom seems like the best place to hide from reality.

So he climbs in the window and faceplants on Scott's bed until Scott gets bored of staring at him from his computer chair and pokes Stiles in the side with his foot. "Dude, are you okay?"

Oh, there are so many ways to answer that question. This is Scott though so Stiles goes with brutal honesty. "I got Derek pregnant. Like, crazy werewolf biology magic pregnant with an actual baby but he and Isaac are living in my house so I cant go there and freak out,"he says directly into Scott's comforter. "Can I stay here forever?"

Scott laughs for a second then stops in that way he has when he realizes people aren't joking. It's like his vocal cords just freeze. Stiles wonders how he does that. "Holy shit, dude, are you serious?"

"Ngh-hm," Stiles grunts in the affirmative without lifting his face.

"That's- Wait. Stiles, hey." He pokes Stiles again with his foot, harder this time. There's an edge of panic in his voice. "Hey, does this mean I can get pregnant? Stiles, seriously, sit up."

Stiles sits up but mostly that's to glare at Scott. "I don't know. Are you planning on having unprotected anal sex any time soon?"

"What?"

"Yeah. That happened. With Derek." He waits for a moment to let that one really sink in. Scott makes a strangled noise. "Yeah," Stiles agrees.

"Huh," Scott tilts his head to the side. "So does that mean you're gay now?"

"Oh my god. Way to miss the point entirely."

"I'm just asking," Scott says with a shrug. "You know I don't care. I mean, I thought you had better taste, dude. Seriously? Derek? The guy's a total butthole. But, um, I'm supportive? I'll totally be Cool Uncle Scott because face it, you are not cool." 

As much as Stiles wants to shake Scott, he loves him in that moment. He loves him all the time, but right now, it's an actual physical ache how much. 

"Thanks."

There's a long silence before Scott speaks again. "You're in trouble aren't you?"

"Define trouble?"

Scott laughs. "Dude. You're having werebaby. With Derek freaking Hale"

"I am," Stiles groans, covering his face with his hands. "Oh my god. Derek's you know, he's Derek and he's okay. Good even." 

Things are shockingly good, actually. They don't talk much but they didn't before. Now that they're sleeping together – actual sleep because, well, Stiles doesn't really feel that horny with his dad on one side of the wall and Isaac on the other and also because Derek doesn't seem interested – they're starting to get actually close. Derek's starting to really fit against his side, in his arms. It's actually really nice.

"Uhuh."

"Yeah," Stiles says because Derek and how things are going emotionally with Derek are so not the issue right now. Not even close. "The actual pregnancy's going to be worse than the exploding chest xenomorph in Alien, or when Noomi Rapace has to cut out the mutant squid child in Prometheus? I can't even tell you."

"You can tell me anything."

"Oh no." Stiles says dropping his hands. "I totally can't. Jesus its so fucked up. Apparently wolves like...developed this entire secondary sex mutation in born werewolves? Yeah. I don't know. Deaton didn't pull out diagrams or anything but basically, it's a biological backup plan. Because packs needed to expand but back at the dawn of werewolves or whatever, you couldn't always trust the people you bit. Not like that's changed much. Oh, and this is the best part, Derek's got to turn into a wolf to have the puppy. Like, since it works because of wolf magic? He has to be a wolf for all the," he waves a hand, "Plumbing to rearrange. It rearranges, Scott. Like extra things appear."

Scott wrinkles his nose. "Ew."

"Right?"

"Speaking of things that are gross: why did you even sleep with Derek in the first place?" Because yeah, that's the thing about Scott. Give him enough time and he almost always gets around to the relevant questions. It's simultaneously one of Stiles favorite and least favorite of Scott's personality traits. 

"It was an emergency."

"You had a sex emergency?"

Scott is dubious. Stiles doesn't blame him. At all. It happened to him and _he_ is still kind of dubious.

"No, Derek did."

"Werewolves can have sex emergencies?" Scotts eyebrows disappear into his bangs. "Why does no one tell me these things? Werebabies and sex emergencies. I mean, I should know that right? So I can, I don't know, get protection or something?"

Stiles shakes his head. "Yeah, Scott, because this is obviously about you."

"Hey, I just don't want to get pregnant. Helping you with this is going to be enough."

"Wow. So selfless."

Scott drops down next to him. He gives Stiles what is supposed to be a gentle bump with his shoulder. It nearly knocks Stiles over because werewolf. He catches Stiles before he can topple off the bed though and then they sit beside each other in the quiet of the room for a long while. 

"Are you scared?" Scott asks at last. He has this tone in his voice that means that he has literally spent the whole time they weren't talking, thinking about how to ask this question. 

He took the time and energy to consider the right way to do this, so of course Stiles' knee-jerk reaction is deflection. "What are you kidding? Compared to some of the things we've dealt with this year, the whole magical male werewolf pregnancy is nothing."

"Yeah but I've seen all the same things you have and I've got the wolf powers and if I were you and Derek were Allison and there was going to be a baby, I'd be freaking terrified. So I don't know, you could be scared. Are you?" He asks, because they have been friends long enough that he'll catch Stiles non-answers if he really wants to. Clearly he really wants to. 

With anyone else, Stiles would lie, say he was fine, that this was no big deal. But this is Scott. For the first time in what feels like forever, it's _his_ Scott, the brother he always wanted who has fucked up but has never not been there for him, not when it really matters. He's the person Stiles can trust with his feelings even when he can't trust the melonhead with anything else because they've always been each other's safe places – Scott when Stiles mom got sick, Stiles when Scott's parents split up. 

So Stiles drops his head onto Scott's shoulder, like he used to when Scott would come visit him and his mom when she was dying. Scott leans into it because Scott remembers. Melissa would drag them both home too late on a school night and tuck them into the same bed while the Sheriff sat at his wife's bedside, waiting for her to die. They share that quiet connection for what feels like a long time before Stiles finally says "Yeah. God, Scott, what the hell am I going to do?"

"I don't know," Scott says tilting back so that their heads are touching. "I want to say things are going to be okay but nothing seems like it's okay anymore."

"Yeah," Stiles agrees. Then he figures, fuck it, and says "What if I'm not good enough?" he asks on a rush of air. "What if I break them?"

"What? Derek and the baby?" When Stiles nods, Scott pushes his head a little tighter against Stiles, his longer hair rubbing against the fuzz on Stiles' scalp. "Dude. How could you break them? That doesn't even make sense."

"None of this makes sense," Stiles groans. "I have a werewolf babymama man who lives in my room and helps make dinner every night. And before, with all the wolf stuff, it was bad enough worrying about you and my dad and then Allison and your mom but this – this is like- I feel like I can't breathe because what if I breathe wrong and it hurts one of them?"

"How could you hurt them by breathing?"

"I don't know. The point is that they're there – they're in my head and in my house and it's like- any little thing could result in me ending the world."

"Don't even joke," Scott says grimly. "We have no idea what else is out there so just. Yeah."

"That doesn't make this better."

"Sorry."

"My _dad_ came with us to see Deaton today, Scott. My _dad_. Because he knows now, everything. I had to tell him. I'm not a wolf. Derek and I aren't actually together. Isaac is living in our freaking guest room and I'm going to have a baby. An actual baby who is a going to be a tiny person that will need me to take care of it and love it and teach it why there's more than one Robin but only one Batman. I want to but I don't know if I can do this."

Scott clasps him on the shoulder. "Hey, you take care of me and your dad all the time. It can't be that much harder."

"Oh my god, why not just say 'things can't get any worse' or 'lets split up' and jinx this whole thing even more," Stiles moans.

Scott chuckles and gives him a very gentle elbow check. Then he pulls out a classic Scott left turn of random insight and says, "My mom's home. You want to go down and tell her?"

No. A world of no. So much no. Except for how that was exactly what he wants. Since his mom died, Melissa McCall is the only thing Stiles has had that even come close to filling the gaping maternal hole in his life. He wants his mom, wants her to tell him that this will be okay, that he'll be a good partner and a good dad but he can't have that so, yeah. He'll let Scott drag him downstairs to tell Melissa.

She takes it all in with the new aplomb she's gained since discovering her son was a creature of the night. When Stiles is done, when he's let it all explode out again, Melissa gives Scott a long look and says, "Go to your room and do your homework."

Scott gapes at her. "It's a Saturday."

"Yes. And you got what in Chemistry?"

Scott looks at the ground. "An F."

"That's right. So you're going to?"

"Go do my homework."

"And be grateful I got Mr Harris to give you all these extra credit assignments while I talk to Stiles."

"Okay," Scott says, slumping even farther. He shoots Stiles a look that is both commiserating and apologetic at once then slinks out of the room. If he had a tail it would be between his legs right now. The thought makes Stiles laugh because hell, maybe Scott will have a tail one day. 

He laughs until the laughter shifts from amusement into the kind of hysterical giggles that have nothing at all to do with humor. He feels cracked because jesus christ, he's having a baby that could have a tail. Probably will and he just- He doesn't know. For the first time, away from his dad and Derek and everyone who he needs to be brave for, Stiles feels the reality of the situation settle on him and crack his brittle bones like egg shells.

Melissa waits for him to calm down, go quiet though not still before she holds out her arms. "Come here, baby," she says gently and Stiles goes. He lets her wrap him up in her arms and her mom smell and buries his face in her shoulder and sobs. 

He loves her but he wants his mom. He wants his mom to see whether or not her grandchild would have a tail or tiny teeth and claws, if it would be a boy or a girl, if it would have Derek's ever changing blue-green eyes or his own brown ones. He wants her to know all these things that she's never going to see. 

He cries like a small child into Melissa's shoulder because he loves her ferociously but she's Scott's mom. Not his. And it's not fair. He shouldn't become a parent without both his parents there to help show him how. Hell, Derek shouldn't either for that matter. 

It's all just so...wrong. 

Not the puppy itself. Stiles is already in love with the puppy, knows he or she will be perfect, beautiful and amazing. He knows that it will be the most right thing he ever does but everything else, everything around them is a catastrophe.

"Shh," Melissa soothes. "Shhh, I know, baby, I do. I know. When I found out I was pregnant, the whole world was suddenly overwhelming. This is normal. I promise."

"Nothing about this is normal."

"Yes, Stiles, it really is." She strokes her hands up and down his back. "This part is at least. The way you feel, thats all natural. Nothing's bigger than this. Not even werewolves."

"I want her to help me," Stiles says into her shoulder because Melissa is the only one its safe to tell. He couldn't even give Scott that confession.

"She will."

"She's gone."

"I'm a mother. Trust me. That doesn't matter. She will."

~*~*~

Derek lies sprawled on the bed, an arm thrown over his eyes against the overhead light on the bed. No, his bed, Derek thinks. His and Stiles'. Their bed. The thought makes his head spin every time it drifts through his mind.

Isaac is half on top of him, head on his shoulder arm draped across his chest. It's bizarre - how fast they got here, how deeply inside him Isaac has climbed in the last couple of weeks. He's gone from awkward almost friends to pack to family. This is the closest to pack Derek has had since Laura and he doesn't say he wants more but fuck, he really does.

He wants this from Stiles. He wants it to be as easy for him to hold out an arm to him as it is with Isaac but the instinct isn't there on Stiles' side like it is for the two of them. Being close is good, it feels right, empowering even but it's not the same. 

Then again, Stiles already had people to lean on. He's got his dad and Scott and, from what Derek's seen, Scott's mother. Isaac is like him - he's all alone. It makes needing easier because they both need the same things. Granted, Isaac tends to go about it completely differently.

"How can you have not seen Captain America?" Isaac asks because he's been talking about comic book movies for the last two hours and after the first forty-five minutes, Derek hadn't had much of a choice but to actually start talking back. 

Derek shrugs. "I don't really go to the movies that often. I told you already."

"Netflix." Isaac says. Then shakes his head. "Also Stiles has it. It's on the third shelf of the DVD stand in the living room" He keeps looking at Derek, with his big brown eyes. "It'd be a good distraction. You clearly need it and I'm obviously not working."

Derek blinks at him. "What?"

"You're fried. Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

No. Derek's avoided looking at himself if he can help it. Has since the fire, which is why he just runs his hand through gel and tugs his hair up. It doesn't require that he meet his eyes in the mirror and seeing everything he tries to push out of his mind so that he can function. 

"I'm taking that as a no." Isaac pokes him in the ribs with the elbow draped across his chest. "Your eyes look bruised and you're almost grey. What did Deaton say about how the whole puppy thing is going to affect your health."

"It's not a puppy," Derek sighs. He's not quite ready to admit defeat even there's no getting rid of that stupid nickname for his cub. Especially not if Isaac - who is arguably his best friend at this point - is using it too. 

"He said it shouldn't be dangerous, just shorter." There would be trimesters, and cravings and swollen ankles and morning sickness and any other crazy symptoms were all to be expected. Only Derek was facing two month increments rather than three - because wolves natural gestation was just over two months. 

Only less than two weeks away from finishing the first trimester, Derek figures that meant the fatigue and feeling of being stretched to thin and worn through was normal. At least for his shiny new definition of normal. Probably. Hopefully.

He knows that it's not always like this. He remember's one of his aunts pregnancies and it was totally normal. Deaton said that with the nature of the conception, the magics involved in the pregnancy and the fact that he was going to transform in order to give birth - he was basically falling about halfway between wolf and human.

"Okay. Then I'm officially worried about you." He rubs his nose into Derek's shirt. "You're all I've got dude, so you can't get sick on me."

Derek sighs and buries his fingers in Isaac's curls. He wonders if Laura felt like this with him after the fire - fiercely protective and teetering on the edge of heartbroken at the detectable fear and sadness. He really hopes not. He doesn't like to think that he did that to her all the times he pressed into her touch, nearly whimpering for comfort and contact.

"I'm fine."

Isaac inhales deeply then shakes his head, though not enough to throw off Derek's hand. "You smell wrong."

"It's the baby. Deaton said it could smell like cancer, because of the chemicals."

Isaac shakes his head. "No, not that smell. I know that smell. There's the you smell and the baby smell - because Stiles has it on him too - and the actual sick smell of your body doing weird things but this is... I don't know. It smells like sadness but not quite."

"I'm not sad."

"You're always sad," Isaac counters and Isaac would know. Like knows like and Isaac has been battered by sadness and loss. He could see it even without the wolf senses - Derek has no doubt. "It's not exactly sad though. It's something else."

"Okay."

Isaac lifts up and stares at him. His eyes are huge and brown and studying. Derek doesn't know what he sees exactly but it makes him frown before he says "You're giving up."

Derek shrugs because, honestly, he has. He is a shit Alpha and a shit wolf and a shit human being who is taking advantage of a teenage boy, his dad, and their hospitality. After Laura and what he did to Jackson and Peter coming back - it's too much. His emotional reserves are pretty much empty. What he has left he's sending to his baby, curled in on himself sending all the love and hope he can't muster for himself to the tiny life growing inside him.

"No."

Derek lifts his head and blinks at Isaac. "No?"

"No. The puppy needs you and I need you and Stiles needs you and I think Scott does too even though he's not ever going to say it ,so no. Get your shit back together."

Derek quirks an eyebrow. "That was really motivational, kid."

"Shut up. I get it but this is good isn't it?" He waves a hand at Stiles' bedroom. "They want us here." The fact that it's been a long time since either of them were wanted goes unsaid. Derek hears it anyway. 

"Yeah." 

"They do. Stiles lights up like a kid on Christmas morning every time you walk into a room and the two of you together smells almost like cookies baking. What the hell else do you need to know that you're in the right place? Because we already have what amounts to a written invitation."

"Stiles is reacting to the baby, Isaac. That's a good thing but that's it."

Isaac snorts. "Right, You're going to make me do this aren't you?"

"What?"

"Be that friend - the one who spells out the obvious facts in front of you that you're completely missing. You're forcing me to become a stereotype."

"I'm forcing you?"

"Yes. Your preservation is my preservation so you're backing me into the role of sassy gay friend. I don't want to be the sassy gay friend." He grins a little. "I couldn't pull off the scarf."

"The what?"

Isaac stares at him. "You really don't get on the internet that often either do you?"

Derek shrugs. "I read a lot." There's no risk of finding something he doesn't want to see in a book. Besides, they've got a durability he likes. In the last few years he's developed a soft spot for things with permanence. Maybe that's why he doest feel quite comfortable here in Stiles' house. Everything about what he has feels transient. 

"Right. Look.You guys sleep together. For the last two weeks he's ducked out of every practice early so he can get back to you. You make him smell like baked goods and guess what? You actually smile sometimes when he's in the room. Have you considered making out with him? It may improve your mood and that could only be good for your health. Its the mind-body connection."

"I'll take that under advisement," Derek snorts. "Thanks for the tip."

"He practically begged you to be with him. I was there remember."

Derek reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose. "With painful clarity." He still hasn't really answered Stiles about being more. He's been contenting himself with pressing his face into Stiles neck as they slept and keeping his mouth shut. 

It seemed to be working for him so far. When he was touching Stiles, the ache that permeated his whole body the rest of the time faded away. He felt awake enough to focus or relaxed enough to sleep. Those moments were like cool water on a hot day and Derek was not looking to risk losing that. 

Isaac, of course, didn't seem to see that. Not of his frown was any indication. "I don't get your issue here. It's not like you weren't with him before because, newsflash, babies aren't actually delivered by storks."

Derek gives Isaac's hair a tug. "And?"

"And you're cockblocking yourself from being with someone you know for a fact likes you."

"It's not the same."

"Well, break it down for me. You never told me what happened, just, hey, freaky male pregnancy. Surprise. Then the Sheriff was all 'grab your shit and come with me.'" He moves his head gently forward, pulling against Derek's grip just a little. It's not a sign that he wants to be let loose, just that he knows that Derek's still there, still connected. 

"No." A thousand times no. There is no way that he's going to break down what heat was like - the fear and desperation and raw need that tore through his mind. Not for Isaac. It's bad enough that Stiles and the Sheriff know all they do from the appointment with Deaton.

Partially its because he's ashamed but he also hates himself for the fact that he wanted Stiles before his heat, that he still wants him now after everything. He's trying to keep from pushing the familial affection Stiles is slowly growing for Derek for something else out of obligation. He's worried that he's going to get comfortable here, in this room, with these humans and his beta and it's all going to fall down. 

The Alpha pack hasn't made a move but that means nothing. The sigil they left on the door of his house was a promise: We're coming for you. Maybe not now, maybe not for months, but they were coming.

If they came now, Derek would be fucked. Boyd and Erica are still missing. Jackson, as far as he knows, hasn't done more than leave his house and go straight to Lydia's in back in the last six weeks since his change, not even during the full moon and Scott probably wouldn't piss on Derek to put him out if he were on fire. 

Now with the cub, he smelled sick. Dying sick. Cancerous and wrong and the Alpha Pack would take one deep breath and know that he couldn't hold his own. He was indisposed and his pack consisted of Isaac and his uncle who was a whole other kind of problem.

Peter did this to him, temporarily tore away his Alpha power, robbed him of his self-control, and triggered the heat that could have destroyed his mind. Derek tries not to think about how he could've come back, could have found Derek writhing on the floor and wouldn't have had to force Derek to do anything. All he'd have needed to do would be to touch Derek's skin and Derek would've been begging for Peter, incest or no. 

That made no more sense now than it had then. Derek doesn't know why he set it in motion, what he was thinking, but he knows it was possible. He can still see the fear and concern in Deaton's eyes at the prospect. 

He hasn't seen Peter since moving in with the Stilinskis so it's possible he doesn't know about the cub but Derek doubts it. The odds of conception in heat for a male were two out of three and Peter would know what he was looking for. Derek would go out into the woods, back to the house, trace Peter's smell and demand answers if he thought it wouldn't put everything at risk.

He has to come from strength - with Stiles and his uncle and his baby - and right now he doesn't have any. That's probably what Isaac is seeing. Yeah. That has to be it. 

"No," he says again. A little louder this time, just to make sure it actually comes out right.

"I stood and listened to you two agree to try."

"I'm doing the best I can here, Isaac."

"You're not trying and I really think it would help you. It's supposed to make you stronger to be with your mate right?"

"He's not my mate."

That has Isaac sitting up a little more. Derek doesn't whimper, doesn't pull his Beta back down into his side because he's not that kind of Alpha. Trying to be that had failed spectacularly and at least Isaac stays close enough that Derek can maintain their connection with his hand in Isaac's thick hair. 

"He's not?" Isaac asks, dark eyes boring holes in him. "How do you know?"

"It's complicated."

"We're werewolves. Everything is complicated. Are mates exclusive to born werewolves?" Isaac watches his face and can see when the no crosses Derek's mind without needing to hear the words. "Okay then you need to tell me. I'm not finding out about something big by accident. Like an unplanned pregnancy for example.” 

"It's- it's like any other relationship. There are people in the world who you could end up with and you know when you're with them it's a possibility." He shrugs like it's nothing, his hand combing through Isaac's hair in want of nervous fidgeting. "With wolves that kind of pull is a little stronger, a little louder than humans. It isn't limited to just one person but it's definitely...compelling with anyone who fits."

Kate had pulled him. Her presence had wrapped around him like rope and reeled him in with all the emotions and desperation his parents had told him could exist with a possible mate. He just hadn't realized that this particular rope was going to be used execute his family until it was too late. 

"Like Scott and Allison," Isaac muses and Derek rolls his eyes, because yes, just like Scott and Allison and just as fucking stupid. 

"Unfortunately. At least some of it." He doesn't know for sure how far they got, if their little proclamations of love were enough but they might be. "It's not just the connection. You have to make a commitment and that's different for everyone."

"Like getting married?"

"Basically. There are changes, for the wolf involved and it's for life." Most of the time at least but not always. He knows there are ways to break a mate bond, just like he knows about what blue moons can do to a wolf mind and the difference between blue and gold eyed wolves. It's another part of his personal canon just like everything he learned growing up. He knows it's possible with an established one but almost unheard of and far more complicated than a human divorce. He's never heard of one happening before, not outside of the general. 

He thinks he's better off not mentioning that. Isaac will take the situation more seriously if he knows "If it's not complete, you just end things and it goes away eventually."

The damage left behind stays of course. The pain he feels when he thinks about Kate is almost physical and he doesn't know how much of that has to do with the fact that she could've so easily been his mate. He trusted the pull of a possible mate and look what it got him - a family in ashes. He's learned, like he's heard people learn from every relationship, that just because he feels potential doesn't mean he should do anything about it. Hell if anything, feeling like this for Stiles is a sign that he should crawl out of this bed and go out the window and run until he can't recognize anything anymore.

He doesn't because of the baby, because he promised to try, because Stiles looked at him and said "Family" and Derek's too weak to hold up against that. However, he is strong enough to resist pulling Stiles any deeper into the mud with that Derek lives in that he absolutely has to.

"The bottom line is, be careful."

"Right," Isaac hums as he scoots back down on the bed so he's curled against Derek again. "I guess that makes sense."

"Yeah it-"

"Hey, Derek, listen we need to talk about- Oh." 

Yeah, Derek thinks as Stiles bursts into the room. Of course this is when the door would open. When he and Isaac are focusing on the conversation, not the sounds of the house. The way he's staring at them, his eyes huge and hurt, that just makes it all that much better. 

Derek knows what he's seeing, Isaac practically on top of him, his hand in Isaac's hair. They're close enough that Derek wouldn't even have to sit up to kiss Isaac, if he were inclined. He's not but there's no way Stiles can know that, not with what's right in front of him now.

"Stiles." Derek tries but Stiles holds up both hans. 

"No. Its cool. You two are- yeah. I'm just going to go downstairs so you two can continue whatever it is that you're doing. In my room. On my bed. Awesome. I'm going to leave now so, yeah." He backs out of the doorway closing the door too hard. Derek and Isaac both wince at the slam.

Isaac sighs and rolls away from Derek and off the bed. He stares at Derek's still form then says, "You should go after him."

Derek stares back. "Yeah. I'm who he wants to see right now."

Isaac says nothing. Instead, he comes around the bed, grabs Derek by the shoulder and uses all of his wolf strength to haul him off the bed, out of the room and down the stairs. He knows he should resist, but Derek can only bring himself to drag his feet a little as he and Isaac follow Stiles' smell and the sound of him breathing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Study Buddies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/561892) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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